Possessive and Protective
by Ell Roche
Summary: John should've known better than to trust Sherlock's safety to anyone but himself. Deaged!Sherlock


**Title:** Protective and Possessive

**Pairings:** None

**Warnings:** Implied sexuality, mentions cannibalism, implied violence, and de-aging.

**A/N:** The new season of Sherlock and the meme on live journal seduced me for an afternoon. This was the result of my dalliance with the Sherlock BBC fandom.

* * *

When John's mobile beeped, he was standing in the store and reaching for the milk, because Sherlock used the rest of theirs last night to give the dismembered toes in their fridge a bath. He should've been used to such things by now (and would have been horrified by that familiarity if he weren't Sherlock's flatmate), but all he had wanted was some tea after a long night of nightmare-ridden sleep. Tea was unpalatable without milk.

John glared in the general direction of his pocket and set the milk in his basket. Sherlock could bloody well wait a moment before adding a random number of items to the grocery list.

The mobile beeped again. Then rang. Then beeped.

One eyebrow rose as he reached for his mobile. "Either he's more bored than he was this morning"—John shuddered at the thought and briefly wondered how many new bullet holes would be in the wall when he got home—"or Lestrade found something to keep him busy." He sincerely hoped it was the latter.

**Come now. – L**

"Stole your phone too, did he, Lestrade?" John chuckled lightly and scrolled to his next text. He froze as he stared at the words on the screen.

**Car out front. Hurry up. – L**

At that moment, the loud, wailing sound of sirens pierced the afternoon air. John flinched, memories of air raid sirens skittering through his head. His mouth tasted of dust, and his skin was dry and covered in sand. He was—John shook his head, forcing the memories back where they belonged. That was a police siren, which meant the messages were likely from Lestrade, despite their Sherlock-esque feel. "What in the world's going on?"

John accessed his voicemail, listening to Lestrade's voice with widening eyes and paling skin. His grip on the basket loosened, sending it to the floor. The plastic milk carton bounced, and the bag of pasta exploded, sending noodles skipping across the aisle. His fingers were white from the pressure he exerted as he clutched the phone desperately. As soon as the message ended, he sprinted toward the front of the store and outside just as the police car skidded to a stop. He yanked open the back door and dove in.

The officer up front, someone he was sure he hadn't seen before, sped off into traffic, sirens screeching their progress. The buildings blurred past in a dizzying haze, but John felt like they were barely moving. He needed to be there _now_.

"Curse you, Sherlock," he muttered as he clenched his hands into fists. The prat should've called him when Lestrade first contacted him with a new case. Their row hadn't even really been one at all. So while Sherlock was . . . John had been doing the bloody shopping instead of his job: watching Sherlock's back.

After much too long the car halted at the Yard, tires squealing their protest at the sudden deceleration. Smoke floated into the air as John impatiently waited for the man to open his blooming door and let him out. He should've taken the extra few seconds and sat in the front, avoiding the matter of no inner door handles in the backseat. "Sometime today would be nice!" John snapped, channeling his inner Holmes. He glared at the man and didn't bother to thank him once the door was opened; John merely leapt from the car and ran inside the building.

He'd only gone three steps inside before Sally appeared beside him, looking more shaken than when they had investigated that double homicide last month. The bodies had been eaten—by the human killer. It hadn't been pretty, and the smell was bad enough to put him off food for two days.

"Where is he?" snapped John.

"Just follow me," she mumbled.

Lestrade's message kept playing repeatedly in John's head. "How is he?"

Sally glanced at him from the corner of her eye, as if she thought he would go on a rampage any moment. "He's . . ."

"Well?" he demanded, when she didn't continue.

"I think you should just see for yourself," said Sally with a wince.

"Is he hurt?" asked John, no longer bothering to give her the benefit of the doubt. Sherlock was right; she was utterly incompetent and working her way through the ranks on her knees. Anyone with a brain knew to answer his questions when they pertained to Sherlock; he was the authority on all things Sherlock Holmes. John would even go so far as to say that he knew Sherlock better than Mycroft did, and Mycroft spied on them all the bloody time.

"He's still a freak, if that's what you mean. Maybe a bigger one now, or smaller, depending on how you look at it."

John squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw. He couldn't remember the last time he had wanted to punch someone so much (Sherlock didn't count). And he had never hit a woman outside combat situations; he wasn't going to start now. This might possibly have had something to do with the voice in his head mentioning that assaulting an officer inside the Yard was probably 'not good'.

They rounded a corner and John didn't even blink at the sight that met his eyes. Half the bloody Metropolitan Police Force was probably hunched outside an office window, staring in with horror, shock, amusement, and fear. The first three were normal occurrences when around Sherlock, but he couldn't ever remember seeing anyone other than criminals afraid of the Great Consulting Detective. And what could he possibly do in his new state . . . ?

"Budge over. Let me through," John snapped, shoving them left and right. Once he muscled his way through the crowd, he turned hard eyes on Lestrade. This was the Detective Inspector, not a woman. He was fair game. "You were supposed to watch out for him," he accused.

"I was," Lestrade replied, hands raised in the air as if to declare his innocence. But his eyes kept drifting toward the closed door of his office, an almost wild fear in them. The blinds encasing his office were closed almost all the way, forcing the gawkers to crane their necks in an attempt to glimpse the inside.

"Then how did this bloody happen?" John screamed. When John was watching after Sherlock, he rarely got injured. John took his responsibilities seriously, and if anyone should be in Sherlock's current situation, it should be John himself.

"Well we didn't know the killer was a barking mad scientist, did we? If Sherlock knew someone was going to be shooting darts filled with experimental chemicals at us, he should've bloody well shared that instead of playing Consulting Detective and Criminal with someone who's killed seven people—that we know of!" Lestrade countered.

John wished he could refute that statement, but he couldn't. Lestrade knew Sherlock's love for games, and everyone wasn't likely to forget Sherlock being in possession of the pink suitcase on their first case together. In Sherlock's opinion, evidence was to be released to the Yard as sparingly as the Yard released it to the press.

"Why's the door closed?" John asked, accepting Lestrade's explanation for the moment. He'd re-instruct the Detective Inspector on proper Sherlock care later.

Lestrade paled and winced, glancing at said door with fear and worry in his eyes. "Sherlock might possibly . . . have my gun."

John thought he might have a brain aneurysm. "And how, exactly," he bit out viciously, "did a five year old child relieve you of your gun?"

"He's Sherlock, isn't he?" Sally said from behind him.

She had a point, but that still didn't answer his question. Not only had Lestrade let some mad killer shoot Sherlock with a dart that regressed him physically (perhaps emotionally and mentally, too), but now the child genius had a projectile weapon. He could already see headlines that would destroy Lestrade's life: _**Child Murdered Inside Metropolitan Police Station By Detective's Weapon!**_ This was a nightmare in the making.

"I was just carrying him into my office, and then he woke up," said Lestrade. "He took a quick look around, and then pulled my gun and jumped from my arms, landing hard on the floor. When I asked if he was all right and stepped closer . . ." Lestrade stared at his office with haunted eyes. "He released the safety and pointed it right at my chest."

"Right. That's . . . right." John could picture it in his head: Sherlock, small and frightened, not knowing where he was, black hair a tousled mess as he prepared to shoot. "Has he said anything?" asked John, barely suppressing the urge to break down the door and hoist Sherlock safely into his arms.

"Not a word," said Lestrade.

"Figured he'd talk to you, though," Sally said. "Kids are right fond of their pets. I doubt the freak's ever had one before that's lived as long as you."

The look on Lestrade's face was almost indescribable, but John had a sudden hunch he wasn't the only man in the room who currently wanted to break her nose. Sometimes John thought she was the one who needed a minder to tell her when something was 'not good'.

John straightened his shoulders, marched over to the door, and then knocked on it. "Sherlock, if you don't open this door I'm going to call Mycroft." The door stayed shut; it should've opened almost instantly. Sherlock was obviously affected by more than the change in age. What if he didn't remember John? What if he was hoping the threat would be carried out and his big brother would miraculously appear to save him from this new place that wasn't _right_?

"Just . . . don't shoot me," John whispered almost silently. He turned the knob and opened the door. His eyes darted around the room before settling on Lestrade's desk; it offered the most cover, and a line of sight to the door, so Sherlock was almost guaranteed to be hiding behind it.

Taking one step over the threshold was like walking into a live minefield: terrifying and thrilling all at once. He moved into the room slowly, afraid that he would spook Sherlock into pulling the trigger and hurting one of them. He didn't even know what kind of condition Sherlock was in. The thought of all that brilliance, sarcasm, and wit being gone made John's breath catch in his throat. What if he never heard Sherlock composing sketchy violin music at three in the morning ever again? How could he possibly live in a flat that wasn't full of experiments and pilfered body parts? Who else possessed the ability to inform almost every living person that they were utterly stupid and useless?

The silver barrel of Lestrade's gun appeared on the desk, and John halted instantaneously. Then curly black hair and blue-gray eyes crested over the top of the desk. "John?"

John exhaled in a rush, breath expelling from his lips faster than a jet could fly. Sherlock remembered him; he hadn't lost his best friend to some psychopath. "Yes, Sherlock?"

Sherlock's eyes shot toward the open door. "Is it safe?"

"Yes, Sherlock. You're safe."

"Why, exactly, did the police kidnap me?" asked Sherlock, still hunched behind the desk.

John's eyes widened. Well, he supposed that would make sense from Sherlock's point of view. One minute he was off doing who knew what (probably annoying Mycroft), and the next he was waking up in an armed stranger's grasp. "They didn't."

Sherlock raised one eyebrow and twisted his little face into the 'I'm right and you are wrong, wrong, _wrong_' expression.

"There was an accident, and Lestrade was just keeping you safe until I got here," John explained quickly. It was the truth, after all, and he knew Sherlock would be able to see that.

Huffing, Sherlock stood up, only gaining a few inches in height from his previous position. He was short, but not unhealthily short, John noted as his eyes raked over the child. "I suppose I shall have to accept that I don't have all the relevant data."

The vocabulary didn't stun him, but the implied trust in those words did. Sherlock, as a child who had no real idea where he was, or how he'd come to be there, simply took John's word as fact. It was an almost frightening amount of trust. His desire to protect Sherlock increased exponentially, and a wide grin split his face.

"Let's get out of here, yeah?"

"That would be acceptable," Sherlock replied. His small hand was curled around the butt of the gun and he walked toward John; his eyes never left the open door. He stopped beside John and stared up at him with an expectant face. "John," he sighed when nothing happened. Sherlock fisted a hand in John's trousers and tugged to get his attention. "John!"

John stopped glaring out the door at Sally and glanced down to see Sherlock's 'How much longer are you going to make me wait?' expression. This was immediately followed by the look that said: 'You should know exactly what I want without me having to spell it out for you!'

"Right. Sorry." He was about to ask for the gun, but one blink from Sherlock told him it was not going to happen, so why bother wasting their valuable time asking? John crouched down, allowing Sherlock to clamber up his back; he desperately tried not to think about the fact that a miniature Sherlock had one arm looped around his neck, and a gun clutched in the other, which rested against his shoulder. "You all right?" John asked as Sherlock's legs curled around his waist; he helped support Sherlock with a hand under each slender thigh.

"Once we are away from these would-be kidnappers who hide behind badges I shall be fine." The nearest policemen stared in shock at the insinuation. "Also, I want some ice cream."

John snorted. Finally, a normal request for a child. "Ice cream sounds good. Let's go do that." He strode forward, edging around the crowd of people who kept staring at Sherlock as if he were an endangered animal at the London Zoo.

They were close to making it out of the room when Anderson emerged from the group of people, a scowl on his face. "John, you're not taking him anywhe—"

Sherlock lifted the gun and pointed it at Anderson. "John, tell him to step away from you," Sherlock said, voice cold as marble.

"Anderson!" Lestrade reprimanded.

At the same time, John said, "_Sherlock_."

"Mine! You're mine, John. I won't let him talk to you like that. You're mine to protect." The hand that wasn't holding the gun tightened around John in a sort of lopsided half-hug that was clearly meant to be reassuring, but mostly just shocked John speechless. He had known, of course, that Sherlock cared. But Sherlock had never voiced such sentiments before. John was smart enough to _deduce_ them, after all, so speaking them would only be redundant. "Now tell him to go away," Sherlock commanded.

"Or you'll what, throw a tantrum?" Anderson scoffed, as if his life wasn't in the hands of a possessive sociopath who had little tolerance for stupidity or repeating himself.

Releasing the safety, Sherlock narrowed his eyes and said, "Mummy never taught me to share."


End file.
